FREE WILL AND AUTOMATISM 287 



I will take one more illustration from Mr. Mallock's 

 book.^ 



"In reality, so far as reason and observation can guide 

 us, the one is the result of circumstances no less than the 

 other ; both are equally mechanical ; and if resolve 

 differs from spontaneous impulse at all, it differs only 

 as a donkey engine differs from the main machinery of 

 a locomotive with parts of which it now and then puts 

 itself into gear." 



But a donkey engine is of the same nature as a loco- 

 motive ; both work automatically as soon as an impulse 

 has been received from without; they both illustrate the 

 unconsciousness of human automatic actions. 



But neither of them can represent the presence of ^Z- 

 tention or of a Consciousness of the power to choose ; or 

 the mental, abstract deliberations undergone by what we 

 call Volition. 



Automatism may be considered as having different 

 degrees, according to the amount in the wa?it of attention, 

 and when there is none. 



The extreme condition is that of the hypnotised 

 person clapping his hands or one in reverie like Prof. 

 Sedgwick ringing the bell quite unknowingly. In both 

 cases the acts are done through suggestion. 



But it often happens that we do things, while thinking 

 of something else, but do not altogether lose sight of what 

 we are doing ; as in eating one's dinner and talking to one's 

 neighbour simultaneously. One remains still conscious 

 of the plate of food, but the process not requiring special 

 attention, the eyes and the hands do their work almost 

 entirely on their own account, and the teeth follow suit. 



Similarly a whole page of a book may be read aloud, 



1 Of. cit., p. 115. 



